To me whether there are some errors or not in Scripture is something determined empirically. We cannot dogmatize facts into or out of existence. Bernard Ramm, “The Relation of Science, Factual Statements and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy,” JASA 21 (1969) 98-104. I came across this quote in Christopher Rios’ book After the Monkey Trial (p.147), which I recently reviewed on this blog. Read more
The first Patheos Book Club that I was invited to participate in, unless I am mistaken, was for the book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (Sacred Activism) by Charles Eisenstein. Unfortunately the timing led to a long delay in my being able to review the book, and eventually a decision to set it aside and come back to it. A long time has passed since then, but given that I finished the book, I thought I would blog... Read more
Before traveling to Italy for the first time this summer, I sought recommendations about places to visit and even more so places to eat in Rome. The one specific restaurant that a colleague recommended was Il Falchetto. Its location is such that you probably wouldn’t just happen across it. And that is a good thing, because most of the places on the main thoroughfares are very busy. At Il Falchetto, on the other hand, it was just down a side street... Read more
A quote from a post by Pete Enns about this classic chicken-and-egg question. Read more
I’m going to be sharing photos from my recent travels, and unlike the hasty bulk uploads to Facebook which some of you may have seen, here I will be commenting on and explaining them. Rather than make one post that might take a while to load because of the number of images, I will be trying out the new slideshow multi-page option we now have at Patheos. And so be sure to keep clicking to the next page until you... Read more
Joel Watts suggested that this might explain the issues related to the endings of the Gospel of Mark: What do you think? Read more
PZ Myers shared the above image a while back, comparing different ways of viewing the world and our place in it. I’m not sure that they are as incompatible as might be thought. One can recognize that all living things share a history and much else, and yet also treat more complex living things as in some ways different, perhaps even from our standpoint, dare I say superior? But with that preeminence comes not merely privilege, but also responsibility. How... Read more
Via Christian Nightmares. There is so much great potential for a Star Wars themed VBS-style children’s camp. Good vs. evil as more complicated than simply Jedi vs. Sith. Temptation, power, mystery, rules vs. love. But instead I suspect that it will in most instances look more like this: Read more
Pete Enns shared the prayer offered by Rev. Mark Burns at the Republican National Convention, saying that it is not a benediction. Historically, I beg to differ. To the famous set of Jewish prayers known as the Eighteen Benedictions, a nineteenth was added at some point which is a “blessing” of the heretics (birkat ha-minim). Of course, it is in fact cursing the heretics. But there is a long history of what are known as imprecatory psalms and prayers, calling... Read more
Everyone is talking at the moment about the plagiarism of Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech by Melania Trump. Here is the evidence, in case you haven’t seen it: So that's pretty blatant, right? pic.twitter.com/EPnHME7afV — Mike Hearn (@mikehearn) July 19, 2016 One of the ironies, of course, is that many of the people who applauded the words coming out of Melania Trump’s mouth would have booed the same words coming out of Michelle Obama’s. But as a religion professor, for me... Read more
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